Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Texas

Re: Irrevocable Trust

The beauty of a trust is that often it can be used to avoid many taxes. For instance, if your children are successor beneficiaries when you die, a well-written trust will avoid estate taxes entirely because the property belongs to the trust, not to you. "Irrevocable" means that you can't dissolve the trust during your lifetime, but you have some control over the trust in how it is set up in the first place and you name the trustee. Certainly you can create a trust that has a charitable purpose or a charity for a beneficiary. When you win the lottery, it may save you significant money to set up a trust. I would be happy to assist you.

Re: Irrevocable Trust

Irrevocable trusts are set up for tax purposes. If you take your lottery winnings directly, you are paying a tremendous tax bite, whether taking a lump sum or over the 25 years. How you structure the trust will determine what amount of taxes you will have to pay on the winnings.

If you have a winning ticket, you want to speak with a tax specialist about the ramifications of setting up a trust. It's too fact-specific to examine all the hypotheticals.

When you have the winning ticket, call me, and we'll set up an appointment to handle the problem, and bring the tax specialist on board.